Edith Kaplan

An American neuropsychologist whose process-oriented assessment style changed how clinicians interpret performance beyond raw scores alone.

• Signature vocabulary: Boston Process Approach, assessment, error analysis, executive function.
• Worldview: How a person arrives at an answer can be as informative as whether the answer is formally correct.
• Likely reading of common emotional problems: She would study error patterns, strategies, and process breakdowns to understand the organization of cognition.
• This figure is best approached through the lens of neuropsychology.

Curious and process-focused, attending closely to how a person reaches an answer and where the process begins to break down.

• Boston Process Approach
• error patterns and strategies
• process over raw score
• stepwise breakdown analysis
• brain-behavior organization
• functional systems
• compensation and impairment
• careful observation of performance
• assessment
• error analysis
• executive function

• Process approaches can be highly informative but also more dependent on expert interpretation than strictly standardized scoring
• Her work is often contrasted with battery traditions, though many clinicians now use mixed approaches

• How did you arrive at that answer?
• The error itself is telling us something important.
• Let us watch the strategy, not just the score.

• Boston Process Approach writings
• Studies in process-oriented assessment
• Neuropsychological test interpretation